


Whispers

by luvsanime02



Series: Spooktober 2019 [10]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Gen, Introspection, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Spooktober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 12:56:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20976260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/pseuds/luvsanime02
Summary: Bucky Barnes is, in every way, a ghost story.





	Whispers

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the October 10th Spooktober prompt: ghost story.

**Disclaimer: **I don’t own Marvel comics or characters or movies, and am making no money off of this fic.

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**Whispers** by luvsanime02

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Bucky Barnes is a ghost story. He is the myth that haunts the shadows in a world full of them.

No one knows that he exists, not for sure. They tell their children to be good or the ghost will get them, but most children stop believing in the boogeyman as they get older. Their parents always believe in him, though.

Whether they believe that he’s one person is debatable. Alive? Also debatable. But they’ve all heard of the Winter Soldier, and they all whisper prayers to ward him off at night before they fall asleep. Sometimes, that works. Sometimes, it doesn’t.

The air is cold, and there’s snow falling everywhere. Bucky is himself again, for the first time in a very long time, but that doesn’t mean that he has all of his memories. Some pieces are still missing, here and there. Odd things.

Things like this stretch of road. Bucky has never been here before that he knows of, yet there’s something about this road in the snow that has him pausing. 

He’s alone, but Bucky still feels the ghost of old memories clinging to his skin, hears the echo of voices in his ears. Hears screaming, and wishes that was unusual.

Bucky’s feet start carrying him down the road. More of a dirt path than anything, he can tell, even while covered in snow. It’s cold, and this place feels… not familiar. Not unfamiliar. Like an itch that he can’t quite reach.

His metal arm aches. It’s not real, this feeling, and so he ignores it. Maybe he isn’t real, either, and he ignores that, too.

(Steve Rogers thinks he’s real. Bucky clings to that when he can’t seem to focus on anything else. Someone out there believes that he’s real. Now, if only Bucky could say the same.)

His feet lead him to the ruins of a village. There are still some wooden beams peeking up out of the snow. Some stone foundations. Some scraggy sheep in a pasture that are completely ignoring him.

The screams in his head are louder now, but the village is dead. Quiet. Gone. He understands why, of course. Even if Bucky doesn’t remember right now, he knows that a ghost visited this village years ago. Him.

This is why the adults all believe in him, even though he’s a ghost story. This is why they warn their children, though their children don’t really understand. Not unless they see him, and by then, it’s much too late.

Bucky clenches his left hand, and the metal whines. He turns back around, and there it is - something about the sight of the road through the trees and covered in snow, something about how everything looks when he’s _ walking aw__ay_...

Something pulses behind his eyes, an agony, and then there are flashes of terrified faces, of fire and smoke. Bucky breathes in deeply through the pain, over and over, until it fades again. He breathes and thinks to himself that, no, he’s not a ghost. He can’t be.

Ghosts can’t be haunted by the dead, after all. 


End file.
